Should an attempt be made to argue that, even if it be conceded that the language is that of the Author of Acts, the sentiments may be those actually expressed by Stephen, it would at once be obvious that such an explanation is not only purely arbitrary and incapable of proof, but opposed to the facts of the case. It is not the language only which can be traced to the Author of the rest of the Acts but, as we have shown, the whole plan of the speech is the same as that of others in different parts of the work. Stephen speaks exactly as Peter does before him and Paul at a later period. There is just that amount of variety which a writer of not unlimited resources can introduce to express the views of {178} different men under different circumstances, but there is so much which is nevertheless common to them all, that community of authorship cannot be denied. On the other hand, the improbabilities of the narrative, the singular fact that Stephen is not mentioned by the Apostle Paul, and the peculiarities which may be detected in the speech itself receive their very simple explanation when linguistic analysis so clearly demonstrates that, whatever small nucleus of fact may lie at the basis of the episode, the speech actually ascribed to the martyr Stephen is nothing more than a later composition put into his mouth by the Author of the Acts. CHAPTER VI. PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH. PETER AND CORNELIUS. We have been forced to enter at such length into the discussion of the speech and martyrdom of Stephen, that we cannot afford space to do more than merely glance at the proceedings of his colleague Philip, as we pass on to more important points in the work before us. The author states that a great persecution broke out at the time of Stephen's death, and that all [------] the community of Jerusalem were scattered abroad "except the Apostles" [------]. That the heads of the Church, who were well known, should remain unmolested in Jerusalem, whilst the whole of the less known members of the community were persecuted and driven to flight, is certainly an extraordinary and suspicious statement.(1) Even apologists are obliged to admit that the account of the dispersion of the whole Church is hyperbolic;(2) but exaggeration and myth enter so largely and persistently into the composition of the Acts of the Apostles, that it is difficult, after any attentive scrutiny, seriously to treat the work as in any strict sense historical at all. It has been {180}